Leonardo DiCaprio reveals biggest movie regret

(NEXSTAR) — He may be one of Hollywood's most recognizable stars (not to mention an Academy Award winner), but Leonardo DiCaprio says he still has one regret in his decades-spanning career.

The "One Battle After Another" star recently sat for an hours-long Esquire interview with the film's director, Paul Thomas Anderson, to discuss his life and career. DiCaprio, 50, revealed the role he still wishes he'd taken, in an Anderson film — and the role he took instead.

“My biggest regret is not doing ‘Boogie Nights,'” DiCaprio told Anderson. “It was a profound movie of my generation. I can’t imagine anyone but Mark [Wahlberg] in it. When I finally got to see that movie, I just thought it was a masterpiece. It’s ironic that you’re the person asking that question [about regrets], but it’s true.”

DiCaprio explained that he turned down the role in Anderson's beloved 1970s-set drama because he was already committed to filming "Titanic." While James Cameron's 1997 epic made him a household name, the success of the film and the overnight mega-fame it brought him, ultimately didn't align with his career goals, he has said over the years.

"My whole life became about things that weren't about acting," DiCaprio told Deadline in 2016. He elaborated: "... I knew there was an expectation of me to do a certain thing at that point, and I knew I had to get back to what my intentions were from the onset."

Now, nearly 30 years post-"Titanic," DiCaprio is finally in a film by Anderson, in the upcoming action-thriller "One Battle After Another." The film, which Anderson has been writing and developing since the 2000s, stars DiCaprio alongside heavyweights like Sean Penn and Benicio Del Toro as a group of ex-revolutionaries who reunite to save one of their daughters.

In the Esquire interview, DiCaprio added: "Ultimately, wanting to do this movie was pretty simple: I’ve been wanting to work with you —Paul — for something like twenty years now, and I loved this idea of the washed-up revolutionary trying to erase his past and disappear and try and live some sort of normal life raising his daughter.”

"One Battle After Another" is scheduled to be released in the U.S. on Sept. 26.